Improvement in rocking-cradles



I. BUSHONG. ROCKING CRADLE.

Patented May 8,1877,

MPEIERS. PHOTO-LITHOGRAPHER,-WASNiNQTON. Dv C.

UNITED STATES PATENT QEEIGE;

ISRAEL BUSHONG, OF NEW HOLLAND, PENNSYLVANIA.

IMPROVEMENT IN ROCKlNG-CRADLES.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 190,417, dated May 8, 1877; application filed March 2, 1877.

. cradle to be turned obliquely, at any desired angle, across the rockers, as and for the purposes herein more fully stated.

The accompanying drawings, with the letters of reference marked thereon, and a brief description, will enable those skilled in the art to make and use the same, and in which- Figure l is a perspective side elevation of the entire cradle and rockers. Fig. 2 shows the rockers detached. Fig. 3 shows the slotted bottom of the cradle. Fig. at shows the cradle inclined on the rockers.

The cradle-box A presents no special novelty, and may be made after any approved pattern, to which the rockers H may be attached along the sides; but, to adapt the cradle to the various uses I contemplate, in addition thereto, I have a central slot, E, made in the bottom of the cradle. (The side slots F are for ventilation, instead of simple slats.) The two rockers H may be more or less flared out below, and connected above with a strong platform, (3, perforated in the center for a headed screw-bolt, with a washer and bindingnut or thumb-screw, D d.

The cradle A is set upon the platform 0, the headed bolt D inserted through the slot E in the bottom B, and through the platform 0, and beneath it secured in its adjustment by the thumb-screw d. The dotted lines across the platform and pivot-bolt in Fig. 2 show a few of the diagonal adjustments on the rockers when itis desirable to rock children in an oblique position, or transversely.

By shifting thebox A as shown in Fig. 4, the bed is inclined so as to elevate the head of the child more or less, according to the adjustment made.

Older children or inexperienced and thou ghtless nurses often rock the cradle with such a force as to cause the head of the child to be jerked now to the right and then to the left,

which is certainly injurious, even to healthy children, and calculated to impair the vision by weakening the eyes, fixed upon some objectas the light or the nurse-when awake, and is no doubt an agent, often, in the cause of strabismus.

To obviate theseobjections to the common cradle, and to relieve children, when being rocked, from this lateral motion, and enable the head of the child to be elevated by inclining the body, have led to the improvement specified. We thus give the undulating motion in a line with the body, or more or less obliquely, as desired.

I am not aware that a cradle made adjustable by a bolt and binding-screw, entering through perforations or a slot in the bottom,

in combination with a pair of united rockers,

ISRAEL BUSHONG, M. D.

Witnesses:

DAVID S. RETTEN, HENRY NAGLE. 

